The Ukrainian Marines’ AMX-10RCs Didn’t Last Long in A Frontal Assault

Those 40 AMX-10RC reconnaissance vehicles that France donated to the Ukrainian marine corps—they’re not tanks.

As if the marines didn’t already know this, Russian artillery brutally reminded them on June 5, as the Ukrainian navy’s 37th Marine Brigade assaulted Russian positions in Velyka Novosilka in southern Donetsk Oblast.

The Washington Post spoke to Ukrainian veterans of the costly but successful assault. One marine told the Post Russian artillery fragments penetrated the thin armor on the 37th Brigade’s six-wheel AMX-10RCs as the brigade rolled toward Velyka Novosilka.

The brigade eventually moved its 15-ton AMX-10RCs from the front of the assault force to the back. But that didn’t save those two damaged AMX-10RCs that independent analysts confirmed the Ukrainians abandoned last week. It’s unclear whether the Ukrainians have recovered the immobilized recon vehicles in order to repair them.

The 37th Brigade helped to lead the initial assault on Velyka Novosilka that ultimately breached Russian defenses around the town and allowed several Ukrainian formations—the 35th Marine Brigade, 25th Air Assault Brigade, 68th Jaeger Brigade and a pair of territorial brigades—to race south along the Mokri Yaly River.

In a heady few days, the Ukrainians liberated several villages on the river’s banks, most recently Makarivka. They clearly aim to push all the way to the Sea of Azov and free the city of Mariupol from more than a year of Russian occupation.

Whether Kyiv’s troops succeed, and how quickly, remains to be seen. There are substantial Russian forces, and dense fortifications, between Makarivka and Mariupol.

All that is to say, the 37th Marine Brigade won that initial battle around Velyka Novosilka and set conditions for the follow-on forces’ rapid advance to the south. But the 37th Brigade’s success came despite the AMX-10RC’s attributes, not because of them.

The AMX-10RC with its 105-millimeter main gun and day-night optics is a “sniper rifle on … fast wheels,” Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian minister of defense, crowed after test-driving one of the vehicles back in April.

Reznikov’s praise should come as no surprise. French firm GIAT specifically designed the aluminum AMX-10RC for exactly the qualities the defense minister singled out. Fighting range. Situational awareness. Speed.

GIAT did not design the AMX-10RC for an armored breach of enemy fortifications. That’s a job for tanks and special armored engineering vehicles that weigh three times as much as an AMX-10RC does and benefit from steel or composite armor that’s hundreds of millimeters thicker than the thin layer of aluminum on an AMX-10RC.

Which is not to say heavier vehicles always are successful in a breach. An attempt by the Ukrainian army’s 33rd Mechanized and 47th Assault Brigades to cross a Russian minefield just south of Mala Tokmachka, 40 miles west of Neskuchne, ended in disaster on Thursday despite the brigades deploying the heaviest assault vehicles in Kyiv’s inventory: ex-German Leopard 2A6 tanks and ex-Finnish Leopard 2R engineering vehicles.

That the heavy brigades’ heavy vehicles were busy getting wrecked Mala Tokmachka last week could explain why the 37th Marine Brigade apparently had no choice but to attack Velyka Novosilka without significant armor support.

The 37th Brigade was supposed to go to war with up to 16 tanks, according to classified documents that a U.S. Air National Guard airman leaked online, but it’s unclear whether the brigade ever got those tanks.

The brigade’s, um, economical assault on Velyka Novosilka underscores Ukraine’s risky strategy as its southern counteroffensive rolls into its second week. Kyiv prepared nine new brigades specifically for the counteroffensive—including the 33rd, 37th and 47th Brigades—and also assigned dozens of older brigades to help.

So far, Ukraine has committed fewer than half its available forces. It’s apparent Ukrainian commanders are waiting for the lead brigades to open gaps in Russian defenses—gaps through which the commanders can send additional brigades.

Those additional brigades include many of the Ukrainian army and air-assault force’s heaviest units: the 1st and 3rd Tank Brigades and the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, for example. These units between them have hundreds of tanks, and wouldn’t need to send lightly-protected recon vehicles to assault Russian fortifications.

If the 37th Marine Brigade is lucky, it soon will be free to deploy its surviving AMX-10RCs for the kinds of tasks GIAT designed them for: scouting, reconnaissance and exploitation, to name three. Missions requiring speed rather than heavy armor protection.